Welcome back to another installment. This time the topic is:
How to win games and influence dice.
LUCK is a word that is thrown around a lot in dice based miniature wargaming. For obvious reasons, the dice always play a factor in any victory. If it came down to it, I would much rather be the luckiest player in the room than the most skilled. However, there are a lot of ways to play around the odds, and understanding them is the first step. The normal transition here would be to start talking about math and statistics. Instead, let’s talk about one of my favorite businessmen from history. Let me tell you the story of Timothy Dexter.
Dexter was born in Massachusetts in 1747. He was farm laborer and apprentice to a leather dresser before moving to Newburyport Massachusetts where he married a rich widow and begun an assortment of business ventures. Being uneducated, he did not fit in well with the high society at the time and was often given poor advice. He exported warming pans used to heat beds in the cold New England winters to the tropic west indies where the captain sold them as ladles for the local molasses industry and make a big profit. Not deterred he then sent wool mitten to the same place where Asian merchants bought them all to then export to Siberia.
When people jokingly told him to ship coal to Newcastle, he found his cargo arrived at the time of a miner’s strike and was sold for a premium.
What can we learn from Dexter? Although it appears no plan of his seemed to fail it is easy to overlook one of the most important aspects, the fact that he was creating opportunities at every chance he could.
In Kings of War terms, you need to be scouting the battlefield for the same opportunities. For example, unless there is an “immediate” threat, you should always prioritize putting damage on a target outside of inspiring range. This can be especially apparent if you spot a hole in the enemies deployment and grab first turn to take those free shots.
Even when inspired it can be advantageous to attack units that are otherwise “on their own” if your opponent has no good counter-charge opportunities(shameless plug to my last article ). They could be relying on average dice and holding to your charge, but the interesting thing about “average” is that you are just as likely to NOT roll average as you are to roll it. Consider the example below
A horde of ogre chariots finds themselves within range to charge a horde of goblin rabble. Your opponent knows enough that their high nerve would hold against you most of the time and so has his chariots within a turn of being able to turn and help the goblins should you commit. You could wait for backup and ensure that your charge has enough damage BUT we can capitalize on the fact that the chariots are at least 1 turn away from helping and just pull the trigger. The worst case scenario here means we get charged by chariots on the next turn while the best case scenario we roll well enough to break the goblins and do our free pivot.
I want to make it clear that I am not saying you should rely on rolling well, but you should be doing a quick risk analysis of the situation. In the example above, you have one outcome is that you do average or below average damage and your opponent holds and starts to grind on your unit. The other option is that you roll well and punch a hole and use this advantage to turn the corner on your opponent.
MATHS?
While I have avoided talking about math so far, there are a few things that every good tabletop general should know about their army. These are some basic numbers you should know off the top of the head .
- How many hits your units do on average (both hindered and unhindered)
- The nerve of the unit you are about to fight and any relevant rules regarding this such as headstrong or fury
With this information, you can get a good picture of when you will be charging into a winning or losing combat. The magic number that I always give here is that you want to get to a point where you are looking for a “5” to break a unit. If you roll a 3 then you at least waiver them (assuming they can be waivered). Something I always recommend new players is to try playing an army that has a Me4+. It’s very easy to calculate half the number of hits. Undead, Dwarfs, Orcs are all great example of armies that mostly hit with half their attacks on all core units.
Playing around BAD LUCK
The question you should be asking yourself about the dread “snake eyes” is not IF but WHEN. It is going to happen to all of us, the best we can do is try to mitigate it. I think the best time to think about snake eyes is when it comes down to scenarios. Because the swings on the scenario can be so massive, its best to think about what would happen if you did roll a snake eyes. I have many time seen players(and also been guilty myself) do moves they think is inconsequential only to have it bounce back in their face. Don’t assume that you will kill units, instead make sure you stack enough Unit strength around a token around the objective so that no matter what you roll you still come out on top.
A valuable tool to mitigate luck in your army can be a unit that plays the role of “janitor”. Something that can come in and clean up units that are already heavily damaged. Often Individuals do this role best because of their ability to pivot and charge whatever target they need. I think we have all played those games where Ba’su’su is able to kill 3 units in a row changing a sure victory into a draw or even defeat. Small long ranged units also do this role very well. Sometimes you just need those last few wounds to kill a unit and that’s where those sharpshooters, clawshots, etc. really shine. In my most recent list, I had efreets play this role, I would try to keep them alive in the case that things went wrong, they would rush to kill as much injured units as possible to push the scenario back in my favor. If nothing else, think about your current list and if it has a unit that can fulfill this role.
That’s Just the Tip for the month. Don’t hate the dice, hate the game.
